Whitney Houston: Who’s To Blame?

It’s a shame that Whitney Houston passed away. It’s a sad thing when most anyone would pass on. As happens with most any death, those who were either close to her or, in the case of celebrities, some fans will try to gloss over or excuse the personal accountability of a life that was simply not lived well. This then leads to pointing the guilt in some other direction. What I have seen online from some fans of hers is this idea that, “somehow it is society’s fault” or “fame was just too much for her to handle”.

No.. no, no. There is nothing noble in trying to remove personal accountability and replacing it with putting the blame elsewhere.

Whitney Houston is to blame for the choices Whitney Houston made. Period. It’s not society’s fault. It’s not her manager’s fault. It’s not her parent’s fault. It’s not even Bobby Brown’s fault, although I will count him as an enabling influence. But there’s a solution for that.. don’t hang around Bobby Brown. Works for me every time. No, if there’s any blame to be had at all.. it rests solely with Whitney Houston.

SHE decided to date an abusive, self-centered, drug-using idiot.. and then marry him. SHE decided to smoke marijuana-cocaine together as a habit. SHE decided to pop pills.

Even if anyone wanted to blame it on this “pressures of fame” nonsense.. look at all the other stars who handle fame just fine! You don’t see Harrison Ford, George Clooney, Adele, Celine Dion or so many others turning to drugs and pills to “handle fame”. Neither poverty nor fame are to blame for drug use.. people CHOOSE to use drugs because they suck at making good life decisions.

Over the years, whenever I happened to hear Whitney Houston sing the lyrics to her hit, particularly; “.. I found the greatest love of all, in me. learning to love myself is the greatest love of all..“, all I heard was narcissism being sung in a wonderful key. First of all, it takes no effort to love ourselves.. selfishness comes naturally. Secondly, the greatest love of all is to love OTHERS, not yourself. But because she was obviously unaware of this to repeatedly sing this song, it gives me a clue to her downward spiral. How could anyone find happiness in this world thinking that loving, pleasing and centering their life around themselves was the path to happiness? It’s like tossing gold into a black hole.. it never ends. Give anything.. something to someone else in need and THEN she’d have known where to find the happiness she’d been seeking. Instead she chose the simple, self-centered path.. drugs made her feel good, so she chose to take drugs. Spending money foolishly made her feel important, so she ran herself into bankruptcy choosing that lifestyle.

So it’s not my fault, it’s not your fault, it’s not society’s fault that Whitney Houston let her life go down the toilet. Take some time one day to rent out Tina Turner’s story in, “What’s Love Got To Do With It?”. If anyone had reason to let their life go down in flames after all that happened to her, it was Tina. Yet she got back up and pulled her life together.

Don’t make excuses for Whitney Houston’s life.. it was the result of her own choices. Just like the rest of us.

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I think what bothers me most is the inequity of it all. Celia Cruz was a true legend in the music business and a wonderful woman by all accounts, never into the drug scene and a true talent with a career that went strong for four decades.

Whitney Houston, in her early days was a normal human being.. but had degenerated into a loud, angry, pissed-off black woman with no manners and a jones for pills, cocaine and weed. Yet Whitney gets the star treatment for a career that doesn’t hold a candle to Celia Cruz? Whitney had maybe ten ‘good’ years.. the rest she was riding on fumes. Pfftt.. the media is trying to sell this as if Whitney was some sort of angel. Not even.

It’s sad that a human being’s life went down in flames due to drug abuse. But let’s not pretend she was someone to look up to or emulate.